Installing MyTomTom (TomTom HOME) on Windows XP x64

For my sins, I run Windows XP x64 on my main desktop. One day I’ll jump on the Windows 7 bandwagon, I promise. While recent improvements with Windows 7’s x64 editions (and the removal of x86 versions from the Windows Server range) has led to more hardware/software vendors writing with x64 in mind, from time to time I’m still left with devices that are not supported.

Case in point, my TomTom GPS device recently decided to pack up and stop working, thanks to a leap-year bug which prevented it getting a GPS signal (really? We’ve only had leap years for about 2,050 years, now). And so a mandatory update was forced on me, which required me to connect it to my computer for the first time in—er—ever. And would their updating software install? Would it bollocks.

Four hours later, I’ve got a working Vista x86 VM running (it was the only 32-bit DVD I had! I’m amazed it still worked with all those coffee cup rings on it), and am installing the TomTom software, when I notice it take a lot longer on one particular step than it did before. And that step was the running of DriverPreInstall.exe. Which was in a folder named win32 (in particular, %PROGRAMFILES%\MyTomTom 3\Driver\win32\DriverPreInstall.exe). This got me wondering, was there a matching win64 folder? So I went looking and, lo and behold, there was (specifically, %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\MyTomTom 3\Driver\x64\DriverPreInstall64.exe).

So I ran that DriverPreInstall64.exe file and it told me that it was missing a DLL. That DLL was DIFxAPI.dll, and it’s part of the Windows Driver Kit (freely downloadable from Microsoft).

This comes down as a 600MB ISO file, which you can open with most compression tools (like 7-zip). Open that ISO file and navigate to the WDK folder, then open the dfx_x64fre_cab001.cab file (also in 7-Zip). There, in that archive, there is a file called _DIFxAPI.dll_00000. Drag that file into the %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\MyTomTom 3\Driver\x64 folder and rename it to DIFxAPI.dll.

Now, run the DriverPreInstall64.exe file and the driver will install. You’ll get the standard warning about the driver not being certified, but you can continue anyway without issue. Now you can connect the TomTom up to the computer by the USB cable and it should install properly. If not, open Device Manager, right-click the TomTom node (it will probably have a question mark against it) and choose Update Driver. The driver should install (it may prompt you again with the certification warning).

Now you should be able to open the MyTomTom3 software (either via the Start Menu or by running the MyTomTomSA.exe directly), and Robert’s your mother’s brother.

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This entry was posted on April 27, 2012 at 2:10 am and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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